~/nyc

Man, it’s good to be here…

So, we’ve done some more exploring - seen the piano-dancers strut their stuff on the famous FAO Schwartz piano (and omigosh, the fluffy toys in there…! Large-as-life elephants and giraffes - wow!), seen a (very little) corner of Central Park, tried the subway a little more, wandered up & down 5th, Madison & Park Avenues (including such delights as the Disney store, and Saks)… Barnes & Noble hasn’t been explored yet, but we’re looking forward to all these things. St Patrick’s Cathedral was somewhat smaller, and less impressive, than we expected. We didn’t go in though - the signs saying that all bags & packages were subject to search just seemed a little more than we were up to, at that stage!

Dinner was at TGI Friday’s on Times Square (finding somewhere that was open, interesting and not a generic-multinational was beyond our sleepy brains) - Times Square is a bit manic, but the hotel room really does seem quiet enough for comfort. The hotel room is small but comfy, and has all we need.

Colm’s found half a dozen guitar shops, just a block away from us (the blocks are amazingly *small*, north-south. The east-west ones are bigger than usual, I guess)… He’s not entirely content with them, he wants to find a more folk-musicy one, but there’s plenty time yet =) We were considering a harbour cruise tonight, but decided not to in the end - neither of us is really conscious, although we’re trying very hard not to go to sleep! =) So we’d have ended up not remembering most of it, I suspect…

New York is amazing… The variety of people is just overwhelming - people from every walk of life, on every continent… On the subway in from the airport, there was more Spanish than English (and all the “J line is replaced with E & shuttle bus service this weekend” signs were posted bilingually… Downtown, I’m pretty sure most of the people we passed were speaking English - but I understood even less of that, than I had of the Spanish!

I’m just overwhelmed =) I love this place =)